In the Margins: The Magi and Me

The Child we seek / doesn’t need our gold. On love, on love alone / he will build his kingdom. His piercéd hand will hold no scepter, / his haloed head will wear no crown; his might will not be built / on your toil. Swifter than lightning / he will soon walk among us. He will bring us new life / and receive our death, and the keys to his city / belong to the poor.
-Gian Carlo Menotti-

It is a story I have known since my childhood, when I watched the animated version of The Little Drummer Boy with my parents, or sang We Three Kings at church. The subject of countless paintings, in various cultures and styles, it is almost as familiar as the story of the stable itself, and of that night when Mary and Joseph, rejected by the inn keeper, sought shelter among the cattle as Mary gave birth.
Magi—astrologers from Persia, known for their wisdom in reading the night sky—travel into Roman occupied Israel, after witnessing the rising of a new star. Believing that this star portends the birth of a great king, they go first to the ancient seat of the Israelite kingdom: to Jerusalem. There they meet with Herod the Great, who holds the title, King of the Jews, through the power of the Roman army, and who knows nothing of the signs spoken of by the magi. Calling the priests from the temple of Solomon, he asks them to search in the treasury of Scripture for some clue to understand the magi’s message, and learns that ancient prophecies predict that one “who is to shepherd my people Israel” will be born someday in Bethlehem, in the region of Judah. Though Herod, like all those in power residing in Jerusalem, is “greatly troubled” by the idea of a new-born king—who could threaten the status-quo and stir up Roman reprisals—he tells the magi of the prophecy, and promises to follow them, if they find the child. So, they leave Jerusalem, and as they travel, the star returns, leading them to a place where they find the child with Mary, his mother. And there  they kneel to honor him, opening gifts of gold, a sign of kingship; and frankincense, an offering for a god; and myrrh, the precious balm used to prepare the dead for burial. And afterwards, having laid their cryptic gifts before the child, they leave, returning not to Herod in Jerusalem, but to their own country by another route, never to appear in Scripture again.
Later traditions added many legendary pieces to this story—e.g., that there are three magi (though Matthew never tells us this); that they are actually kings; that their names are Balthasar of Arabia, Melchior of Persia, and Gaspar of India. Yet, as described in the Gospel of Matthew, the magi are intentionally mysterious, like the priest of Salem, Melchizedek, who greets Abram in the book of Genesis, carrying bread and wine, and proclaiming, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, the creator of heaven and earth” (Gen. 14:19). Similar to Melchizedek, whom later writers see as prefiguring Christ, the magi and their gifts foreshadow the life and death of Jesus, and symbolize the way the gospel will be accepted by gentiles, even while threatened by those to whom knowledge of God was originally entrusted. Thus, while we may wonder about the historical accuracy of the magi’s visitation (as with much in the infancy narratives), there is no doubt that the story itself has a symbolic dimension, intended to open our hearts and challenge our own sense as disciples and followers of Christ and of the Spirit who leads us to him.
As I have grown older, I have come to realize how much more important it is to be among the magi, the pilgrims, than it is to be like those in Jerusalem: blessed with every gift and grace, who find such pilgrims troubling. For the magi, with little or no knowledge of the covenant of God or the promise of Christ, follow the star they encounter through observation and reflection. Like so many good people I know—both within the Church and beyond it—these magi are moved by experience and discernment. They are watchers, who try to read the signs given to them without fear or ideology. And because they are willing to look, they see the star rising in the darkness of the world, and follow it into that darkness, even without fully understanding where they are going.
Through hardships and deserts, among the homeless and the displaced, at the side of children and non-believers, they journey: sometimes in joy and sometimes in sorrow. And though, in following their star, they may end up in the wrong place for awhile—believing that the palaces of power and prestige, of tradition and knowledge will bring fulfillment to their quest—they come eventually to recognize these as places of disappointment. For while Herod and the chief priests have everything they need to find the Christ—have the books of Moses and the teaching of the prophets, the covenant given to Abraham and the power to complete the search—they are unwilling to go along the path of the magi, and are threatened by the very light their tradition recalls. Thus, they stay in Jerusalem, behind walls of money and power, racial privilege and intellectual superiority—walls that mark their slavery and betray the very gifts their ancestors received. Those who refuse to become pilgrims lock themselves in ideologies and ideas of truth, even while failing to pursue the living truth that burns in their hearts, as the star burns in the sky.
Yet, for the magi, the end of their pilgrimage comes only when they leave the centers of power and ideology. For these women and men, the guiding star always leads from theory and fear into encounter and hope. Indeed, the star always comes to rest where one may encounter the living Christ Jesus: among the poor and outcast, the despised and desperate, among those whom the world rejects but who hold in their hearts the fullness of God and the light of the Spirit. Here we must lay down our gifts.Here we find our fulfillment.
Many years ago, while visiting Rome, I happened upon the church of Sant Agostino near the Piazza Navonna. There I found a painting by Caravaggio, Our Lady of the Pilgrims, which moved me deeply. Highly controversial in its day, the painting shows two pilgrims—a man and a woman—at the door of Mary’s house. The doorway itself is chipped and the wall beside it has plaster missing, revealing the bricks beneath. Mary, with only the slightest line of a halo circling her head, stands at the door, barefoot and dressed in red, her leg bent and feet crossed as she supports the body of her naked child. She is a poor woman, who clearly loves her child, and who looks, kind but weary, upon the barefoot and kneeling pilgrims on her stoop. Though not intended as an image of the magi, this painting has replaced for me all earlier images—images of camels and caravans, chests of gold and wise men dressed in the elegance of the east. For in the craggy faces of those two pilgrims, in the worn staffs they hold and the patched clothing they wear, I see myself—and all the other pilgrims who have followed the star, seeking this epiphany of love.